Some people have been trying to rewrite history and make extraordinary claims for Barack Obama vis a vis his connection to black politics. HA!
Barack Obama, the candidate, studiously avoided being the black candidate for the black people. He was the black candidate who could win in New Hampshire and Iowa. When it came to the most serious and profoundly resonant nexus between Candidate Obama and Black America, namely his relationship to the Black Church in Chicago, all the power of a half billion dollar internet savvy campaign armtwisted the entirety of the US media to stay off the matter of race.
It was precisely because Obama was ideologically indistinct for Kucinich and the heir to all that Howard Dean agitated that he moved the Democrats left and gained the lead. But he specifically did so by leaving his racial bona fides with black Americans unstated and implied.
There is no way to honestly re-racialize the candidacy and legacy of Barack Obama. It flies directly in the face of the fact that his candidacy exploited the very idea of a 'post-racial' America. Obama did NOT grow up politically in anything approaching traditional black activist politics. All of his 'blackness' was gained through his marriage through Michelle. He steamrolled traditional black politics in Chicago, and the likes of Tavis Smiley was hopping mad about it. Here in LA, Maxine Waters (whose post-LA Riot political career was completely saved by the Clintons) and Magic Johnson were all in the Clinton camp against Obama. Obama literally came out of left field, with ties to radical leftists in Chi-town and money men who knew a phenomenon when they saw one.
There is and was never any racial promise in Obama that had anything to do with black politics with one exception. Identity. Identity ain't policy. Obama shapeshifted his identity for the masses, and took over the role formerly held by Oprah, with Oprah's blessing. But he has always been Barbara Boxer in a black man suit.
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